Cochran wins Senate Ag post

Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran on Thursday reclaimed the post of top Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee, restoring a Southern influence that could alter the course of writing a new farm bill in the coming months.

Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts had said he intended to stay as ranking member and was prepared to force a vote challenging Cochran, who outranks him in seniority. But at a brief caucus of the committee Republicans Thursday afternoon, Roberts moved a motion in favor of Cochran rather than “roiling the waters” any further.

Text Size

-

+

reset

“Seniority is an historic part of the Senate and I think there is probably a tablet somewhere where that is written down,” Roberts told POLITICO. While he might have been backed by fellow Midwest Republicans on the panel, Roberts said it would have been a “tall order” to have ultimately succeeded. And after years as the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, Cochran was positioned to call in a lot of past favors in a final vote in the Senate Republican Conference.

“I had hoped to stay,” Roberts said. “But agriculture is at a critical point and I just think you don’t want to roil the waters. I don’t want to make it a bigger story than is necessary.”

“I’ll still be sitting right next to Thad and I intend to continue to make my voice heard.”

In a statement later, Cochran thanked Roberts for his service, praising him as someone who has served on the Agriculture panel since 1979 and was briefly chairman from 2003 to 2005 for bringing a reservoir of support in commodity circles.

“I am pleased the members of the Senate Agriculture Committee have entrusted me with the opportunity to be their Ranking Republican Member,” Cochran said in a brief statement. “I will use the experiences I’ve gained in serving on the committee since 1979 to help quickly advance a new Farm Bill that will meet the needs of our country’s farmers, small businesses and those who rely on the nutrition programs under the Committee’s jurisdiction.”

Roberts’s voice has made him a frequent thorn in the side of the South since he has been one of the leading opponents of target price supports important to rice, peanut and wheat producers from the region.

Southern producers complained bitterly last summer when the Senate adopted a five-year farm bill that bore Roberts’s stamp and leaned heavily toward revenue insurance options to replace the current system of direct cash payments to growers.

Corn and soybeans stood to benefit most from the shift while rice and peanuts were left at a disadvantage without some target price program more tailored to their needs. And Cochran was among the Southern lawmakers who opposed the measure in committee and on the floor in June.

In the final months of the 112th Congress, Roberts made concessions to try to reach a farm bill compromise with the House. But the House Agriculture Committee leadership — which leans more toward the South — often found him an obstacle. And at a personal level, House Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), who had served on the House committee when Roberts was chairman there in the ’90s, felt forever “the little brother.”

Cochran is a less cantankerous figure but also less of a recent player on farm issues, since the Appropriations Committee has long been his chief focus. And even among Southern members, there was a bittersweet air about the transition Thursday.

“Pat Roberts has been good to Southern crops and he is a good friend,” said Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.). But then he added with a smile,”It looks like we’ll be eating rice for dinner tonight.”